Loss of a Lovegood
by hergoldeneyes
Summary: A nine year old Luna experiences the death of her mother, and gains a rather... odd nickname.


"Mum?"

Luna's airy voice drifted through the dark hallway of her home. At nine years old, Luna possessed a maturity no one really understood, and that subtle maturity reflected in her melodic voice.

"Mum?" she said again. "Mum, Dad says you should come to bed now. You can continue your experimenting in the morning." Luna's bell-like laugh filled the corridor as she continued to pace herself.

Purple, green, and orange lights filtered through the thin slit under the kitchen door. Luna walked toward it, her bare feet numb against the coldness of the floor. A look down showed her it was wet. She bent down and scooped some of the substance into her hand. It felt like water as she swashed it around in her cupped palms, but had a jelly-like consistency when she attempted to roll it between her fingers.

"Ah, Mum, what are you doing now?" she asked, more to herself than anything. She shook her head, a dreamlike smile playing at her lips.

Luna Lovegood knew her mother was quite talented when it came to working with magic. She wasn't the most skilled at housework—not without her wand, anyway—but that woman could work wonders with magic. She was, as Luna dreamily told anyone who'd listen, an extraordinarily gifted witch.

"_Esilio Urithem!_" she heard her mother cry. Though this was not a spell Luna had ever heard before, she wasn't surprised. Her mother could be quite inventive when she set her mind to it.

Despite it being quite a short walk from her bedroom to the kitchen, Luna still wasn't even halfway there. She tended to pace herself and enjoy every single thing life had to offer. She'd find patterns in the air, if she set her mind to it. With a twitch of her eyes she could make wallpaper patterns seem to jump off the walls; this was a favorite pastime of hers.

What with the colors from her mother's spells dancing on the floor in front of her, Luna did have quite a bit to keep her mind entertained with. She twirled her fingers around her Dirigible plum necklace, making a mental note to make earrings to match someday. Her mother would like that—she had always been a fan of the necklace. But she might have to make a sign with the name of the plum, seeing as they were always confused as radishes…

"_Exelentell Uprimandes_!"

And with those two words, everything stopped.

There was no more light coming from the kitchen, and Luna could no longer hear the ragged breathing that always came when Mrs. Lovegood was trying out new spells…

"Mother?" Luna called hesitantly in her singsong voice. "Mother?"

When she heard no response, she quickened her steps to the point where she was jogging to the door. Her hand closed around the doorknob, and she pushed it open carefully. To her relief, she saw her mother standing—her back to the door and her breathing coming in short pants, but standing nonetheless—next to the counter.

"Oh, good, Mum," Luna said, skipping airily over to her mother. "I thought you'd been hurt."

Mrs. Lovegood did not turn around when she heard her daughter approach. Luna's brow furrowed.

"Mummy?" she said. "Oh, Mummy, have you a Wrackspurt in you? Daddy always said they'd come to us someday. I knew they'd be angry at him for revealing their existence to the wizarding world…" She tried raising her tone. "MOTHER!"

But when her mum turned around, Luna knew it was not a Wrackspurt that was causing her mother to act so strangely. The striking resemblance Luna had always had to her mother was gone. Mrs. Lovegood's skin had gone positively grey, her hair white, and her skin seemed to be clinging to the bone underneath it.

"Uh-oh," sighed Luna. "Father!"

Confident that her father—astounding editor of _The Quibbler _and the man who had a spell to fix all—would be able to fix her, Luna merely took her mother's hand in her own and hummed a lullaby she remembered from her earlier years while she waited for her father to come to her mum's aid.

"What is it, Luna?" her father asked, coming into the room. "And what's this gunk on the fl—bloody hell!"

Not even bothering to reprimand himself for using such language around his daughter, he pulled out his wand.

"Luna, dear, stand back," he said to her before trying every spell that came to his mind to help his wife.

Luna walked over to the couch and lay down, watching her father with a smile on her face. Her mother would be so proud of him once he set her right again.

But the spells Xenophilius tried failed and failed again. When his wife dropped her wand and fell to her knees on the kitchen floor, convulsing in pain, he rushed to his daughter.

"Luna, honey, don't watch," he said, pulling her against him. But Luna, of course, kept her grey eyes open widely as she took in the scene in front of her.

Blood poured from every available place on Mrs. Lovegood's body. Her eyes, mouth, ears, and nose were flooding the floor with it. Her screams filled the house, and Luna's eyes became clouded with tears.

When Mrs. Lovegood's fits subsided, Luna stepped onto the cold floor again. Her mother lay, still, on the ground in front of her. Her body soaked up all it had let out, and she once again became the woman Luna had known all her life, with one difference.

She was dead.

Luna fell to her knees and cradled her mom's head in her lap.

"Oh, Mum," she whispered. "This only could've happened to you…"

And though, for the next four days, Luna's vision was clouded by tears, not a single one of those tears fell from her silvery grey eyes.

On the night of her mother's funeral, Luna stood beside her mother's coffin, eyes still clouded, and face still dry.

"I'm terribly sorry about your loss, Miss Lovegood," a man she did not recognize said to her, bowing deeply.

"It's quite alright," she said, blinking enough times to make up for the lack of blinking she'd done in the past day or so. "Not like I won't see her again, though, right?"

"Er, yes, I suppose," said the man, before continuing to shake her father's hand.

Luna's hands closed around the earring that hung from her ear. She'd made them to honor her mother, and she smiled at all those who stared at them strangely that day, just to make them feel uncomfortable.

And though Luna didn't hear them, all day, those who'd spoken to her were calling her "Loony" though she wouldn't have been able to imagine why…

**A/N: Well, I hope you guys liked it. I had to write something about Luna, seeing as she's so unique, and I haven't read more than one of these yet. Hope I did well.**

**Reviews are love. **


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